A priest who flashed gay porn images onto a screen at a First Communion meeting has been appointed to a new parish in County Louth.

Fr Martin McVeigh shocked parents when the images appeared at the meeting of primary school parents in Pomeroy, County Tyrone, last year.

Now parishioners in Clogherhead in County Louth have been told that Fr McVeigh is their new parish priest – and some aren’t happy with the appointment.

The Irish Sun newspaper reports that several parishioners have raised concerns over Fr McVeigh’s new job just a year after his controversial faux pas.

The cleric took a sabbatical after insisted the photos, contained on a memory stick, were not his.

One County Louth parishioner told the Irish Sun: “He wants us to give him a chance and he seems to be sincere but we are still very angry at the way this happened.”

Cardinal Sean Brady has told the parishioners of his decision to appoint Fr McVeigh to the role which he will take up later this month.

The report adds that Church spokesman Martin Long declined to say whether the appointment to Clogherhead would continue if the parishioners were unhappy.

When the gay porn incident came to light, Fr McVeigh said he had failed to check the computer in advance of his presentation.

He said: “In my shock and to ensure that the images would never be shown again, I destroyed the memory stick that evening.”

Fr McVeigh has already attended a meeting with locals in the seaside Louth village where he maintained his innocence and again insisted that he had no idea where the gay porn images had come from.

The paper says it understood that Fr Paul Clayton-Lea, who had been the parish priest in Clogherhead and who is extremely popular, will officiate at the forthcoming First Holy Communion and Confirmation days.